The present invention relates generally to the conversion of thermal energy to electric energy, being more particularly concerned with such conversion as affected by gap-separated juxtaposed hot-side radiator and cold-side charged carrier converter structures. The present invention is a novel combination of coherent excitation transfer through electrostatic coupling between a relatively hot-side surface and a small-gap-separated juxtaposed cold-side converter surface, wherein the latter is of a novel single-carrier cold side converter construction.
The implementation of practical devices through fabrication by now well-known solid-state chip manufacturing technologies is now achievable, promising thermal-to-electric converter arrays of this character offering high power potential.